Money And Mania Are Ruining Kids Sports - And What To Do About It | Linda Flanagan (Mom of 3, Author, Journalist, Coach)

Linda: It's actually liberating. This is the point I think parents need to get. You don't have to do all this stuff. If you want to have well adjusted, happy children who want to play, they might actually want to keep playing a sport, like introduce them to a lot of things.

Let them pick. It's not about you. That's the missing factor in all of youth sports is the kid. Like, what does the kid want?

Adam: Welcome to Startup Dad, a podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. In today's conversation, I sat down with Linda Flanagan. Linda is, of course, not a dad, but I was so excited to have her on this show. She's the author of the book, Take Back the Game, How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids Sports and Why it Matters. Her book addresses the massive changes in youth sports over the past few decades and how these experiences have gone from healthy and enjoyable to stressful and harmful. She herself has been a competitive athlete and coach in addition to being a long time journalist and author of numerous additional articles on the topics covered in her book.

In addition to her long and successful career, she's also a loving spouse and the mother of three grown kids. In our conversation today, we spoke all about the topics in her book, diving deep into the inspiration behind the book, how youth sports have transformed from the influence of money and increasingly high stakes, how this has affected children's physical and mental health, and what to do to get us back on the right path and release some of this pressure. She provides a practical guide for parents to follow to make kids sports fun again, and highlights some organizations doing this work today. I hope you enjoy today's conversation.

Adam: I would like to welcome Linda Flanagan to the Startup Dad podcast. Linda, it is a pleasure having you here with me today. Thanks for joining me.

Linda: It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam: So many of you will notice that Linda is not in fact a dad but a mom. But that hasn't stopped me from wanting to get her on the show. So Linda, a second, we're going to go into deeper detail on why I reached out and invited you on.

But I was hoping we could jump in and just talk a little bit more about your background and what your life was like growing up.

Linda: Sure. Well, I grew up in Madison, New Jersey, which is basically a New York suburb.

Adam: Yes, my wife is from Chatham, New Jersey, which is right next door.

Linda: I know Chatham very well. Yes, yes. So it's, you know, a painful commute to New York, what my father did every day for about 40 years and I'm one of five kids and my parents, we kind of grew up in a pretty traditional home, like certainly by modern standards, my mother.

God bless her cooked dinner for us every night, which is mind boggling. And you know, my father would take the train and we'd all sit around and have meals together. And you know, like every family, we had our issues. But both of my parents came from the Midwest and they were sort of grounded in you know, they shared these values about like hard work and not being too easy on us.

Just, you know, kind of grinding it out. So it was an excellent childhood in many ways and quite different from I think the way a lot of kids grow up now for better and worse, you know,

Adam: And you ended up with three kids of your own who I guess I would say are now all adults, although maybe they're always going to be kids in your mind.

Linda: Yes. I have a daughter who's 29, a son, 28 and another son, 26.

So I'm sort of on the other end of all the nonsense you have to deal with. And I’ve survived.

Adam: Yeah. With it, with a nine and 11 year old there's a lot of nonsense in our

Linda: Yeah, just you wait.

Adam: Yeah. I know what they say bigger kids, bigger problems or something like that. So, yeah. So I came across you because you wrote a book called Take Back the Game. And you're a parent and a former coach you coached across country. Is that right?

Linda: Cross country at the high school level and track I didn't coach track as much, but for 19 years I coached girls high school cross country.

Adam: Wow. And so you've seen quite an evolution in kids sports. And I'm living through today's version of kids sports, which is incredibly intense for a lot of people. And the pressure to keep up with that is incredibly intense for parents. And so, you wrote a book all about this, and I'm very curious to get into it, and I think my audience probably has kids who play sports and are wrapped up in the whole you know, morass of youth sports. So…

Linda: Morass, that's the word.

Adam: So you're a parent and you coach for a very long time. Was there a Specific moment that made you realize that youth sports needed some reform, was there like a tipping point for you that you observed?

Linda: It was a confluence of events that kind of conspired to make me want to explore the subject. Part of it is that I've been a serious athlete myself. I was a competitive runner. I played sports growing up and I, you know, I was still running when I was a coach, you know, somewhat competitively.

So like sports have been a big part of my life and I also, you know, as I said, have kids and when only my youngest was really interested, but I could sense the weird intensity of kids sports when they were really young, you know, when I was a parent myself and I thought it was strange and I also got sucked up into it.

So that bothered me. But then I guess the real tipping point for me was when I started coaching and, you know, I started coaching because I loved running. I saw what it'd done for me, what it had continued to do for me. And I did it because I thought I wanted to help like other girls develop a love of the sport and I used to always say to the girls I coached like I want you to get the running bug because it's like such a gift if you have a sport or an activity you really like to do And so I went into it for those reasons almost immediately I saw that my sort of altruistic purposes were kind of overtaken by events and that you know many parents, they weren't interested in what the sport could do for their daughters you know, for their own sake, but what the sport could contribute to their college profile or, you know, get them fit for another sport that would then enable them to do better in college.

It was always a means to an end rather than what the inherent benefits of exercise and being on a team. And that bothered me very much and, so I started exploring it and I do freelance writing. So I started delving into some of these issues about the excesses, about the parental fascination. And it kind of evolved into a book years later.

Adam: Well, we were very thankful for the existence of that book now.

Linda: Well, thank you.

Adam: I mean, what you're describing here is parents kind of getting in there and sucking a lot of the joy out of the experience of youth sports and really making it out to be something that is so much more high pressure and just intense for kids who have plenty of other stuff going on in their lives that are intense.

Linda: One of the paradoxes is that I think parents, they feel intense, very intensely about their children's participation and want to give them every opportunity and help them develop. And you know, the point is, the point of the expenses and the time investment is to help them have a good experience.

But the paradox is the more they spend and the more the parents are passionate about it, it takes away from the kid's enjoyment of it. which we can get to, but I think it's kind of liberating to realize that you don't need to do that for your child to have a good sports experience.

Adam: Yeah. So when you think back to your life as an athlete and you know, this podcast, I would say about 60 percent of my audience is dads. What role did your father have in your life as an athlete and how did he steer your involvement and perspective on sports?

Linda: You know, I thought about that a lot and because my father you know, he played tennis and kind of was a casual athlete as an adult, as was my mother. But he viewed sports as something that's good, it's healthy, gets you out of the house, it's something to do. And so he encouraged it.

And he encouraged my interests. So I like to play softball. So every Sunday he would come out, not every Sunday, but often on Sunday afternoons I would say, dad, would you hit me some balls? And he would come out and hit me deep fly balls in the street. And that's like a really great memory, a childhood memory I have with him.

He was entirely supportive. It was just pure support. He might offer me an occasional bit of, you know, advice about, well, look, if you, about when to run in or whatever, but it was never about, you got to get better, Linda. It was entirely positive. And it was based on my interests.

He wasn't trying to get me to do something because that would be good. It would make him look good or it was entirely about my interests and that, that had a big impact on me because it was clear that it was about my enjoyment, not what my sports could do for him. And both of my parents were very busy.

They both worked, you know, again, I'm one of five and they were involved. My father was the mayor and I often think about parents now who prostrate themselves for their kids activities. And I just know my parents never would have done that. I mean, it's not kind to say they had too much self respect because that implies that modern day parents don't.

But I think it would have struck them as so strange to… look, I'm working all week. I'm not going to get in the car and drive you to some tournament in another state. Forget it. I have stuff to do and figure it out. like sports had a place, but it wasn't everything. They had their place and it was a nice place family life, but it didn't by any stretch of the imagination dominate anybody's life. And that seemed right. And my father was a big proponent of sports kind of being in their place that, yeah, they're good for you and great. Go for it. But, you know, you're not going to be a professional athlete, so, you know, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. And I think that was very wise and it's true for kids as much today as it was when I was growing up.

Adam: Yeah. I mean, I would say in observation of our friends and families that we know like sports is really taken on a new life for people. It is the thing that parents seem to prostrate themselves over every weekend, all consuming by the tournaments and the schlepping and the practices and the team management and all that stuff.

And it's like a vortex that just sucks everyone into it.

Linda: And I'd like to see a little more resistance, you know, like you don't have to do this stuff. Like. It's not actually a tornado, you know, you can step away, but its, very, very hard to do that. I recognize that it's hard to do that.

Adam: What are some of the differences that you see between how fathers and mothers impact their daughters participation in sports

Linda: Yeah. Well, this is something, because I've coached I did coach my son in baseball growing up when he was little. But I've been mostly around young women, teenage girls in high school, and I've seen a lot of the fathers around their daughters. I've observed, and I don't have any data to support this, but I would caution fathers to be aware of the fact that I think daughters want to please their fathers.

They also want to please their mothers, but when their fathers take a real interest in their athletic activity, I think it's very hard for daughters not to kind of respond to that. And then it can become a way to please their father more than. Because I love soccer or I love tennis or field hockey.

It's because their fathers love them to do it. And the same applies to boys. I mean, this is one of the traps with parents and kids that kids want to please their parents and when they see their parents happy that they're doing well in sports, they continue to do it. But I think there's a kind of a special dynamic with fathers and daughters that, you know, the father thinks I'm being supportive and helpful and that's great and you want to encourage your daughters, of course, and your sons, of course.

But there's a little bit of a tipping point I think that can happen with fathers and daughters where it crosses over into an unhealthy place with the girls. And it's just something I think fathers need to be aware of.

Adam: I think we'll get to some, maybe some advice that you might have for people towards the end of this conversation, but I wanted to come back to the book. And in the book, one of your central topics is how money and just the incredibly high stakes that are going into sports these days have really transformed it starting at the youngest ages.

Can you elaborate on some of the key changes that you've observed over the years and in your study of this?

Linda: Yes. And it was really interesting kind of trying to peel back, like how did we get from where I was growing up where sports were a part of life and then how did they suddenly become like the centerpiece of family life? And I identified basically three interrelated causes. The first is the money. I mean, there's a lot of people profiting off your family.

That was not the case when I was growing up. And this is in part because for a few reasons. One is that there aren't, there's not as much public funding for. You know, community parks and rec programs that, you know, kind of everybody could do. Now there's been a cut back in that sort of funding.

Last I checked in a 2020 study local spending on parks is 1.9 percent of local budgets went to parks and that kind of thing. So that's 1 aspect, the withdrawal of public funding and then. Greater demand by girls because after Title IX, more girls went into sports, all a good thing.

So fewer public options, more girls, and then you know, individuals, private entities, nonprofits stepping in to fill the void where, you know, we used to have, you know, town leagues and town programs. So the private and non profit sector moved in. At the same time, by the end of the 1990s, in 1997, Disney built the wide world of sports complex, which was a massive, you know, I don't know how many acres it is. It's always changing, expanding how many giant turf fields and stadiums they have, but it was a way to get families to come to Disney. And I've said this so many times, but I spoke to an executive at Disney who was involved in the creation of the wide world of sports complex.

And he said, you know, he was very matter of fact that we wanted heads in beds. That the teenage cohort was no longer interested in the Magic Kingdom. So we needed a way to get that population to Disney, stay in our hotels. And they decided, well, maybe the Wide World of Sports complex would be, that's something attractive.

Get teams to come, families with they're teenagers playing. So they built this and it proved to be wildly successful and succeeded even after 9/11 when so much of tourism dropped, including in the other Disney parks. So this then became a model for other towns who could see, well, maybe we need to build a sports complex in our town to get families to come and play here.

And as a result, there's been this massive growth in these, these complexes there's now some 30,000 of them around the country. It's ten times the number that existed when Disney built the Wide World of Sports complex. So all of that is just contributed to like the sports tourism industry, which is big. This is why parents have to travel all the time. Sometimes they travel to another state to play against a team that resides in the neighboring town. And it's very convoluted and it's about, you know, these states and cities, they want the tax dollars, which I get, you know, from their point of view, it's a good source of income. But it's not necessarily in the best interest of. You know, kids and families. And I think one indication of the extent to which it's a big industry is the fact that private equity firms are buying into youth sports because they look at it as a moneymaker. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, but it's big and it's a very good indication that there are people looking for ways to make money off sports because they recognize that parents will spend on their kids.

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: So the money is one of the big factors. The second is and to me the most interesting is the change in parental attitude towards children and kind of what the role of children are in the family. You know, as I said about my family growing up, my parents would no sooner have dropped everything on the weekend to take us to tournaments and I don't know, it would never have happened because they had their own lives.

And we were a part of their lives, but they had their own lives. And it kind of just switched. And in the words of Jennifer Sr., the journalist, she said, children moved from our employees to our bosses. And that happened, it kind of began in the 70s when another confluence of factors, there was a recession, economic pressure, more divorce, and so split homes.

And this created a lot of economic anxiety. And then we had the start of cable news, which prompted, you know, the 24 hour news cycle, and that's picked up a little bit later, but children on milk boxes, missing children, this elevation of the worries about stranger danger, that came at the same time.

So there was this growing sense that children needed to be supervised at all times. And at the same time, the family size shrunk. So, I was one of five. That would be considered pretty abnormal now. It was sort of not that unusual when I was growing up. Big families, four or five kids. Now that would be like freakish.

The average family size is two kids now. Two parents, two kids. Sometimes they're divorced. And this prompted the feeling that kids needed to be nurtured. The anxiety created this sense that kids needed to be nurtured and cultivated so that their every little potential talent could be pruned and watered and they would, you know, blossom later down the road and have lots of opportunities.

I understand that, you know, people are nervous about the unknown and it seems like we have a winner take all kind of system so that if you don't start your child on, you know, Mandarin lessons when they're 5 years old, they might be screwed later. So all of this is just contribute to this feeling, this anxiety.

I think that's the main word among parents, like, how are my kids gonna do and I better not let them fall behind. I better make sure they have every opportunity. And sports are perfect in that we think of them as character building, as good for them, which, you know, exercise is good. Yes. Socializing is good.

And, It's the most popular extracurricular activity. They're supervised if they're in a supervised program, they're not going to be plucked off the playground by some psycho. So this is how youth sports kind of became the vehicle for some of this anxiety. And then the third factor is colleges, which is of course related to parental anxiety.

This worry about where kids are going to college. And it's all related to economic anxiety about how their kids are going to turn out if they don't get into a great college, you know, all is lost. And sports are a way to give your child an edge in the college admissions process, which we all learned during, if you didn't know before, after the Varsity Blues scandal, you probably figured out then that those parents had been, you know, tipped off about how to do this without actually having to do the work of getting their children to become great water polo players or divers.

They just, you know, cut the line, but so it's those three factors, money, the stakes for parents and changes at colleges. And also colleges, by the way, have given athletes advantages that are attractive. They expedite the admissions process. there's generally a lower standard for admission.

And at some colleges there are scholarships available. So it all works together to make it to kind of taint youth sports. What they're all about, which is what I experienced when I started coaching and saw like, wait, why are you care so much about running? What that can do for their college entry.

Adam: And of course, now we have the rise of the NIL, the name and image and likeness, which is sort of further commercializing. I think probably you can debate. You know, it is good for athletes to be able to make some money earlier in their lives. But have you seen or do you expect that pressure on NIL and of course for folks who don't know, it's essentially the ability to pay, you know, college players now for them to get commercial endorsements and things like that before they're professionals. Do you think that's going to further impact the pressure that parents feel or kids feel to kind of specialize and prioritize and narrow their focus to be just the best at a single sport?

Linda: Yeah. Well, it's hard to see how it could possibly be a good thing.

Adam: Right? Right.

Linda: in terms of like lowering the temperature and returning us to the roots of what sports are for which is not to say I begrudge people making money off their talents, but I think if that's why you're doing a sport, like, that's not great.

It's just, it's not great. And you know, by the way, it's in high schools now, like there used to be a prohibition on it when NIL was first passed. When the Supreme Court allowed it, it wasn't something that high school kids, high school athletes could partake in. And at the head of the national what it's the NFHS, which it's the, National Federation of High Schools or something like that which is sort of the governing body of high school sports, doesn't really govern, but it's sort of overseeing, vowed that we're not going to allow this in high school sports.

Well, fast forward a few years and now over 30 states, it is permissible for athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness. There have been some cases of kids in elementary school doing this. And of course, it's the parents doing it, using their kids to, you know, make some money or advance themselves.

So none of that is something we should be happy about.

Adam: Yeah, because of course an elementary school student and by the way, I didn't even know this was happening at the high school level, which let alone elementary school level, but an elementary school student, they can't sign themselves in a contract or anything like that. It's all the parents.

Linda: Right. Well and there's, risk of parents of young kids signing away their rights. You know, if you're not savvy about what you're signing and agreeing to, you know, you can be very easily taken advantage of and this is already happening in collegiate level and colleges are offering athletes advice and counsel on how to manage their NIL opportunities because it's complicated and legal and you can't just, you know, sign anything.

And so that's another risk is that it's gonna lock kids into unfair arrangements. There's also the risk that this is something that there's a researcher at Families and Sport Lab at Utah State, Travis Dorsch, who's suggested that NIL deals could contribute to sort of a caste system in youth sports where, you know, the club teams, they'll only take you if you have NIL deals and they'll, that'll be one more little feather in their cap when they're marketing. We got X number of kids in Ivy league or D1 programs and 85 percent of our kids have NIL deals. It's just one more sort of unappealing, in my view perversion of sports.

Adam: I wanted to talk to you a bit about specialization because that's a thing. You know, I recently read the book Range that talks about that, and that sort of differences between generalist athletes versus people who, you know, like the Tiger Woods of the world who start playing golf when they're two you've written about this too, but how does early sports specialization affect the physical and mental health of kids?

Linda: The desire to specialize early is in part this comes from this idea that I need to get a good head start. Need to give my kid a head start. And if I just start him in second grade, that'll give him an advantage. And if he just plays that one sport or she.

There's so much research on this about the physical and psychological drawbacks to it. And there's also been recent research that's coincided with the Olympics showing that the very top athletes at the international level did not specialize when they were young. They were multi-sport athletes. those who specialize when they're young, they may become the top athletes but they are unlikely to become top adult athletes. So even the whole rationale for it to begin with, it's, well, maybe I'll have a pro player. It falls apart. The data shows that is not the case. And when you are specializing, when you are encouraging your elementary school kid to specialize or following the advice of what I would consider unscrupulous coach who wants your child to devote himself to baseball at age eight. First of all, that increases the chance of injury.

It's the number one cause of injury in kids. It's overuse playing too much year round, no breaks. It's very bad for the physical development there. Many of the kids are also physically illiterate. Despite the fact that they're playing all the time, because sometimes they're not only even just playing one sport, they're playing one position.

Adam: Mm.

Linda: Which is obviously not how you become a well rounded athlete.

Again, which is why these multi sport athletes at the very top it's the multi sport athletes who develop the best overall because they develop different parts of their bodies. So, the kids who specialize early, they may, it's possible. Become star or outstanding youth athletes. They may, on the other hand, more likely drop out.

Most kids drop out by, there's two different sources of data on this. One says by 11, one says by 13. Because it's not fun. Because when you think about early specialization, if you're just doing one activity, I mean, what child wants to do that? I mean, a handful might, but it's not in their interest. When they quit, it's not fun, they get hurt, and then they burn out and they just want to quit and never play again, and in fact the young players who do specialize early are less apt to be playing into adulthood, that sport. If you think about what you're doing as a parent, what am I hoping to achieve by encouraging them to play soccer year round at age six, it's presumably for them to remain active throughout life, not for them to retire from athletics at 12. But that's the upshot of it is that kids leave sports, they hate them, they don't go back to them. And psychologically, it's not healthy either. There's an Aspen study that said kids between the ages of 5 and 18 play an average of 16.6 hours a week of training, sports, competition, and that's probably tilted toward the teenagers, but…

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: The psychological benefit diminishes after 16 hours. And there's also a rule of thumb about how much you should be training when you're a child. And it is not 16 hours when you're eight years old. And another fact about specialization, which I have to think parents know this, but If you're playing one sport year round and you're beholden to the schedule of the club and the summer programs and that becomes your identity, those are the kids who are going to, when they get hurt, because they will get hurt, are gonna suffer the most because they haven't developed other sources of meaning in their lives.

And I've talked to many people about this, that it's just, it's bad, you know, if you're an athlete, you know, I've been a runner and I've so worried about getting hurt because running has been so important to me, but I have a full life. If you are, you know, 16 years old and all you've done is play lacrosse and that's who you are and that's what you're known for.

Suddenly you tear your ACL and you're out for months and months. It is devastating and that's I think an underappreciated consequence of early specialization.

Adam: Yeah. That's really, really interesting. What are the alternatives? So when parents are feeling this pressure or the coach is approaching the kid and is like, Oh, you really, you really got to drop that baseball and just do the soccer or the whatever. And look, I was uh, multi sport athlete up until a certain point.

And then I just played ice hockey. Um, And I was way into it. But I had no illusions that I was going to be a professional ice hockey player. I did not go to college to play hockey. I still played when I was in college, but uh, for fun. And I still play now as an adult and I love it. But like, what do parents do, you know, when they get all that pressure for specialization, because it sounds like it starts at a pretty young age.

Linda: It does

Adam: And in my observation, it definitely starts at a young age. It has with my kids.

Linda: Well, you know, I share a story in my book about a woman I know who has a, it's like a little lacrosse program in the summer of like a camp where kids run around with sticks and, you know, learn very, very basic things and it's low key and she said, starts for kindergartners.

She said she started getting calls from parents worrying that they've waited too long.

Adam: At kindergarten. 

Linda: At kindergarten.

Adam:  I’m too late. I've missed the lacrosse boat. Yeah.

Linda: So I do appreciate that there is pressure on parents and then they're sort of blown away by what's expected. I think, you know, you have to sort of follow your gut and say like, if this sounds crazy, it probably is. I think if you can get educated about what the factors, what is going on here, people are profiting off this and they're selling you something.

And there's like a social contagion aspect of it where, well, everybody's doing this. So, you know, if you're aware of that, like, just as a matter of fact, that facts be damned, you know, about early specialization, about multi sport play being good for kids, about just regular old play outdoors. You know, if you've read Jonathan Hite's book, The Anxious Generation.

Adam: I have. Yeah.

Linda: Lenore Skenazy, who's free range kids, like kids need to be outdoors playing with other kids.

They don't need adults hovering and, you know, reinforcing the rules and, it's actually liberating. This is the point I think parents need to get. You don't have to do all this stuff. If you want to have well adjusted, happy children who want to play, they might actually want to keep playing a sport, like introduce them to a lot of things.

Let them pick. It's not about you. That's the missing factor in all of youth sports is the kid. Like, what does the kid want? You know, it's so often driven by the adults, with the parents and the coaches kind of plotting about what's the best course. And if we can just kind of step back and let kids kind of call the shots.

And if they want to play, great. If they don't, they don't have to. That doesn't mean you say, okay, go have fun with your phone for the next six hours. Can still have limits and kick them outside. But there are so many alternatives, but you may have to organize a little bit in your neighborhood also and this is one suggestion I heard from Peter Gray, who's kind of the original proponent of play, professor at BC, now retired.

And he said, you know, it takes a little initiative, but if parents could in their neighborhood just find a few other families with kids, you know, in the same age and say every Sunday between three and six or two and five, whatever it is, we're going to have the kids come to our house, play outside we'll have an adult lightly supervising, and we're just going to have, you know, no organized activities.

And you just kind of agree to do this casually with others in the neighborhood to have just playtime for the kids. I mean, it's so much more appealing to me than having to drive hither and yon to get them to some game, you know, where they might sit on the bench half the time anyway. And then you're eating dinner in the car.

I mean, these are like better options for kids and families anyway, if parents can just kind of say, wait a minute, we're not doing this. I don’t want to do this.

Adam: You know, you mentioned the community involvement, the neighborhood aspect of it, but do you have any success stories of communities or organizations that have sort of implemented this positive change in youth sports who are actually making progress here that you would call attention to?

Linda: Yes. I mean, it's not, all is not lost. I think there are a lot of motivated people who are really fed up. And you know, I hear stories cause I go around and talk to parent groups and a couple weeks ago, this woman told me that where she lives in Princeton, she was really upset about what the local options were.

Like she didn't want to go down the travel route, but the local options weren’t great. She said, well, you know, I'm just going to get a few parents together and we're going to, we're going to put some time into the community program and we're going to get coaches and we're going to learn how to coach and we're going to embrace our agency that we can do this.

You know, you don't have to wait for somebody to do it. So they then started developing coaches and getting more kids to join the local option. There's another great story is in Cambridge, Mass. This guy named Jason Targoff, about 10 years ago, he and his wife were in this position where it's like, okay it's like either all in on the travel soccer or this rec program that was like diminished and withered to nothing.

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: And he decided he was going to start a soccer program that was local, cheap, had good coaches. And he, you know, with a lot of, you know, elbow grease built this local program. It's like 2000 kids in Cambridge. I mean, it's population a hundred thousand. So it's a good sized city. And kids love it. They play in their neighborhoods.

They have a game on Saturday, all in this big park. The coaches are trained. It's a very well run, low key soccer program. And I think one of the complaints that parents have when they say, well, my kid is serious. You know, they want to play up. This local thing isn't good enough.

And the coaching isn't good at the rec level. Well, this is an example of a program where they invested in the coaches so they're trained, they know what they're doing, but they're also not tyrants. And the kids then have developed and done well. And because it's fun, they're playing against their friends, it's not sort of antiseptic.

Some of these kids have gone on to play in their high school. Well, I mean, it's a very successful program in that kind of the best of all worlds. These things are possible. It just takes some initiative. And I would add that one very positive development since COVID is that communities are investing more in public parks and rec programs so that kids aren't left with the only option being this you know, expensive travel team that expects you to devote at least two seasons of the year to their activity. All is really not lost. There's a lot of positive developments.

Adam: Yeah. It's interesting that you touch on the cost of those travel programs. I mean, we experienced this firsthand the competitive league at, you know, the age of eight and nine is five times the cost of just the local rec league for something like soccer, where I'm like you just need a field and a ball.

And some referees. But yeah, there's a lot, you know, they enter all the tournaments and like all these other things. And it's quite an expense. It is sort of interesting that you mentioned, you know, earlier in our conversation, creating this kind of like cast system or hierarchical ystem of the haves and the haves nots.

There are not a lot of scholarship opportunities for these competitive things. It's just sort of, at least in my neighborhood, it's just sort of assumed, hey, you pony it up, you know? And that's challenging.

Linda: Yeah, because then it's, you know, if you're not ponying up, it's like, well, what's wrong with you? You know? You feel like you're kind of on the defensive.

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: I mean, I fell victim to that as well. Like, well, what else are we going to do so, you know, if you can't find good alternatives, you're probably likely going to, you know, concede, but, it's really better if you can find something that doesn't demand so much, even if you can afford it.

And a lot of people can't afford that.

Adam: Right. One thing I've noticed that's changed since I was a kid and maybe even since you were a kid is the role that the kids themselves play and kind of the fundraising process. It just doesn't happen that much anymore. We used to go, you know, sell candy bars or do car washes or whatever. To raise funds, sell a directory or something.

And I just don't see that that often. I think in some pockets it happens, but it seems like, at least in my experience, it's happening less than it used to. So they're just sort of assuming the parents will fund it.

Linda: Yes, I don't want to be too grouchy, but that's one of my huge pet peeves about, that's contradiction in terms, a huge pet peeve about fundraising on behalf of kids stuff, like for schools too, that always annoyed the hell out of me. Like, why are we doing this to parents making, it's the parents that are going to go sell the wrapping paper.

It's not the kids um, I just, I think that's very irksome.

Adam: There's a decent number of people who listen to this show that are in the world of technology and startups and things like that. And know a lot about social media. We've touched on that a little bit here, but what role do you think technology and the rise of social media are playing in getting us into this kind of current state of youth sports that we're in?

Linda: There've been a lot of technological advances that have been applied to eSports now. So some of the apps that'll help you schedule, you know, organize teams, organize practices, organize communication and I'm sure that they do ease a lot of the friction that comes with the logistics of all of this.

At the same time, from what I've heard from parents, they add a layer of like, expectation that you can't escape it, you know.

Adam: Mm-Hmm.

Linda: If a kid is sick, it can't make it, you know, there'll be a blast saying we need an extra child or, there's no reprieve from it. The parents I spoke to said it just adds to the level of pressure they feel that they can't get away from the constant updates and uh, reminders about practices and games and that I'm sure they're, you know, they're intended for efficiency and all that and coach communication, but the effect can be that it's kind of one more form of technological oppression. And you know, like I struggle to find many good things to say about social media, you know, insofar as they help athletes.

I don't know. They basically, again, if you read Jonathan Haidt's book about social media, you know, they're just contributed so greatly to anxiety and depression and athletes feeling the need to, you know, show themselves and then getting trashed. I mean, in the Olympics, just I read about an athlete, a runner who just removed his social media because he was getting so much grief.

Adam: Yeah,

Linda: So it's hard to see the positive and I'm open to hearing what the positives are, but. basically I don't think social media is a force for good and it's overlay with athletics. I don't think is great either.

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: I would point out that there is one positive technology that I know of, and I'm sure there are many more that I just don't know about, but this one is called pickup sports app, and it's kind of in its early stages now and it's based in Atlanta.

That's where they're kind of rolling it out, but it's An app that allows kids to gather in their neighborhoods with other kids who are on the app so that you don't have to, you know, follow the team schedule. You can, okay, well, all these kids around in this neighborhood where we can easily meet at this park at this time, and there's going to be one adult or something supervising in this group.

It's one way to fight back against the professionalization.

Adam: I love that. It's creating the ability to not have to be so scheduled or routinized. And you can be a little bit more, even though it’s supported by an app. You can be a bit more spontaneous

Linda: Yes.

Adam: How many people are around right now? Let's go over to the field.

Linda: Right. Right. And not doing it via text, but having, you know, like random kids. I mean, my son would go over to the Y and just play pickup games with people in basketball. But if your kids are younger, you know, it seems like a pretty smart, yes. It's definitely harder. And if there is an app that might be attractive to people.

Adam: That's great. so we talk a lot about parents, right? And the responsibility that parents play to create a balanced and healthy environment for kids. What about the role of coaches? We've talked about how coaches are sometimes putting a lot of this pressure or sort of putting the pressure on the parents who are then putting the pressure on the kids.

So what is the role that coaches can play in all of this to create that balance and that healthy environment?

Linda: At least from the studies I've looked at parents are responsible for getting their kids into sports, generally, and it's coaches who are pushing to specialize. Now, I'm sure there are exceptions. There are obviously parents that push it as well, and coaches who are on the other side of things, you know, who are saying, let's pump the brakes, and you need a rest, and don't play year round.

I mean, coaches you have to be really careful about who you're coaching for and to be sure you're coaching for the kind of organization that shares your values.

Because it's clear in some coaching organizations it's about developing players to win, you know, it's about the elite, la dee da, that's going to then elevate the child to get in front of college coaches. And If you're like a coach who has other ambitions that you want to encourage multi sports, you want to have a positive approach and not that all those coaches who are concerned about getting the kids into colleges are negative by any stretch, but that if you have a more holistic view of a child then you just want to be sure that you're coaching for an organization that shares those values or you're just going to be miserable.

And the same is true if you're coaching at a school. You know, if the, if your athletic program is all about wins, that's what they emphasize, and about the flags in the gym, you know, you're this conference champion then you're going to be a miserable coach. So you just have to be kind of discriminating as a coach as well.

Adam: What advice would you give to parents who really wanna support the interest of their kids but don't wanna fall into the mania that you've described in your book? What are some like practical ways that parents can keep that at arm's length?

Linda: Well, I think the first is to, as I say it in my book, is to look at your child. I mean, they need to be the ones that behind the interest in the activity. they need to be the one saying, I want to play soccer or I want to play tennis. Or if they don't, like you can provide lots of options and encourage parents to give all kinds of options.

It's not just soccer and basketball. There's all kinds of different sports. Some kids lean one way or the other and give them lots of options. But to remember it really has to come from the child. Not that, and I'm also aware that kids sometimes it takes them a little time before they develop an interest.

Like they hate it at first and then, you know, they stick with it and then they're good at it. So I'm not saying you can't like nudge them, but that especially when they get to a higher level, if they're, say they're really good, they're a good soccer player, you know, they're one of the better players or it looks that way when they're eight or nine years old, to still follow their lead, to let them be the ones calling the shots.

So long as what they're asking for doesn't involve, it's like when that starts encroaching on the rest of the family when, okay, we're no longer going to have summers and our winter vacation is gone or Christmas break or whatever holiday you're celebrating. It's now going to be tied up with tournaments, like that's when it's time to assert your own authority as a parent and to consider the interests of the others in the family, which is not to say you don't do it.

You know, maybe you can work it out. however you work it out, you divide and conquer occasionally, or it kind of has to be individual. But if you can be conscious of those challenges that's going to happen, if your child is really good and wants to play all the time, you're going to have to pump the brakes sometimes.

And at the same while encouraging their development. It's a kind of a dance, you know, it's a bit of a dance. I also, you know, think parents need to remember that the odds are not in their child's favor of being a star and that's fine. You know, that's fine. That's life. It's very, very few are, in fact, the number one predictor of whether a child will play sports in college, is if their parents did. So which isn't to say, I mean, some can, of course, I mean, if their parents didn't. But. But a lot of it's just their genetic makeup. And I think it's like kind of enjoy the ride to the extent that you can. And again, it can be very liberating to say, just chill out. This is how Steve Magnus, who's this great coach puts it.

It's like, chill out, step back, let your child drive the bus. Let them kind of be in charge, especially as they get older. Like it's not your thing. And that's really hard for parents. It's like. It's not your thing.

Adam: Yeah, I've noticed that a lot. And it sounds like, coming back to one of the core kernels of advice here. The parents have to avoid getting their own identities wrapped up in the youth sports machine or that their own job as a parent or their own sort of rating as a parent is tied to how well their kid does this or how committed they are or something like that.

Linda: Yes, exactly. And it's hard because I'm sorry, but it was unmistakable to me that, you know, the athletic kids, their parents, there's a, like a little reflected glow on the parents and their standing rises and it's unmistakable. It's certainly true for the child, but it's also true for the parents.

And you have to be aware that, like, that's not a good, like, okay, I really shouldn't be indulging this. And another way you can help your child is to develop your own interests. Go do your own thing and maintain your friendships and go out to dinner with your spouse if you're married or whatever.

Develop your own relationships and interests so that your child can then explore his or her on their own terms. And then maybe do great and, you know, do wonderful things in a particular sport. Maybe not. But it's not the end of the world either way. I think parents really need to reclaim their own lives a little bit.

Because the sacrifices that are expected of parents are insane. And unfair to like working parents and people are tired and you don't have to do that. You know, you don't have to do that even though it seems like you must.

Adam: Yeah, I do worry for some of my friends where I'm like, you are so wrapped up in the sports of your kids, the single sport or whatever. What's going to happen when those kids grow up and move out of the house? What are you going to do with your time? You're going to have to find a new thing to be obsessed about.

Linda: Well, did you happen to see the Wall Street Journal article a few months ago about the rise of empty nest coaches?

Adam: No, I'll have to find that and link to it in the show notes.

Linda: Yeah, it's about parents who feel like they're out of work now because they're 18 year olds have gone to college and their reason for being has been taken away from them and you know, they need advice. And look, we, of course you love your kids. I love my kids and we all want them to do well and be happy and to know we love and support them.

And I think it's possible to do that without giving up your entire identity. And your interests and your partnership with whoever you're, if you have a partnership, whatever that relationship and your friendships, those things matter too. And I think modeling that for your kids is so much healthier than being weirdly obsessive about a particular like skill, like their, with their batting or their, the way their goal type, whatever.

I, it's just a healthier outlook, but it's really hard to keep that perspective when you're in the middle of it.

Adam: Yeah. So if we look forward to kids, youth sports over the next decade or so, what are some of the, changes that you're hoping, you know, your book and your kind of you know, advocacy for this change, what are you hoping to see happen?

Linda: I think there are, as I said, like changes at the local and state level. There's more public investment in sports opportunities for kids. And also we haven't talked about is the fact that sports are so expensive means so many kids don't play at all.

So, sports are based on income level. Participation is tied to income. So if you are in the population that earns $100,000 or more, 46 percent of the kids in those households play sports to a healthy level. And if that number is rising, if you're in the household, it's $25,000 or less, 26 percent of kids play to a healthy level and that number is declining.

So state and local governments are responding to this and putting more money into it. So I think that's a positive development so that, you know, a saner kind of sports world can return. Are there more options for families so that it's not all or nothing? I think there's so many changes in college sports happening right now.

It's just kind of no one knows what's going to happen because not only do we have NIL. But now athletes are going to be, there's going to be a deal about some being paid.

Adam: Mm.

Linda: It's gonna really upend college sports. And if it were to happen, which I would love to see happen, that colleges did away with the admissions advantage, did away with the intense recruiting, at least at the Division III level.

I think it would eliminate the incentive to do some of this stuff, the crazy stuff, because that's driving a lot of it, because why else would you give up your summers and family breaks? if it didn't have some payoff at the end, like you're hoping that it's gonna lead to college recruitment.

So if the colleges took away that incentive, I think that would help. Which is not to say I want kids to play. This is the other thing. It seems like another paradox, but I think kids should be able to play for longer and it should be fun. And if you're competitive, you play at a competitive level, but it's not all or nothing, which is kind of the way it is now.

Adam: I wanted to end with a couple of things. Well, one thing before our rapid fire lightning round is just how can people follow along or be helpful to you in your journey and your advocacy for this change in youth sports?

Linda: Uh, Okay. Well, you've got to read my book. Naturally. Um.

Adam:Of course.

Linda: You know, if you can follow me on Twitter or whatever, @LindaFlanagan2, you know, the new Twitter. You know, I love to do talks to schools, I've done a lot of talks at schools, happy to do that, either via Zoom or even in person.

As I've said, I have a great friend in Piedmont.

Adam: Yeah.

Linda: I guess I think it's not really even about helping me. It's about what can you do to change the culture yourself and kind of take responsibility for it. And that's hard. I mean, I get it's like, you know putting a lot on parents, but to you know, fortify your backbone and resist and like consider that you don't have to do this and if it doesn't feel right if your gut says like, how is it possible that my five year old can be behind?

It's like your five year old is not behind. It's fine. You know, it'll kind of relax. I wish parents would kind of relax a little bit. I wish I had relaxed a little bit more when my kids were younger, just like, it's going to be okay.

Adam: Well, that's good advice to end on. It's going to be okay.

I hope people buy your book. The book's called Take Back the Game. We do a parent speaker series here in Piedmont, so maybe we'll get you here to talk to parents about youth sports.

It'd be fun. 

Linda: Love to do it.

Adam: All right. Are you ready for our lightning round? 

Linda:Yes. I am.

Adam: Okay. The rules of lightning round are simple. I ask you a question. You say the first thing that comes to mind and then we move on.

Linda: Okay. Okay.

Adam: It's a judgment free zone. What is the most indispensable parenting product that you've ever purchased?

Linda: My running shoes. They kept me sane.

Adam: What is the most useless parenting product that you've ever purchased?

Linda: Just about anything requiring batteries.

Adam: Love that. Finish this sentence. When my kids were younger, the ideal day with my kids involved this one activity.

Linda: Walking or exercising outdoors.

Adam: Okay. What is the best piece of parenting advice that you've ever received?

Linda: This was by a nurse when my daughter was born. She said, encouraging us to like, be a little tough about sleep, that it is a gift to your child for them to be able to put themselves to sleep.

Adam: Ah, love that.

Linda: So like at the time the Ferber method was big and that's what we did and thank God we did. But it was hard, but it's a gift to your child.

That was one of the best pieces of advice.

Adam: We also use the Ferber method in our household and it worked like a charm.

Linda: Yep, you gotta do it. You gotta suffer a little bit, but,

Adam: That's right. Okay, what is the worst piece of parenting advice that you've ever received?

Linda: Like, there's a whole mode of advice that encourages rushing to do something to like get ahead. You know, to start soon, don't miss out, you know, like while supplies last, sign them up, you know, anything that encourages rushing was almost always bad advice.

Adam: Okay, alright. We'll put that broad category out there.

Don't do that. What is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a mom?

Linda: God, where do I begin? Okay. I'll just say one thing. Okay. Being dismissed by no offense to you fathers, but by this one father at the school. As being one of those Lincoln school moms the kids went to just kind of being cast being dumped into a category as oh you're just one of those

Adam: Oh, that would be the worst.

Linda: But I could go on but I won't.

Adam: Yeah, this is, we have to keep the podcast under a certain length.

Linda: Yes, I get that.

Adam: What would one of your kids say is the most embarrassing thing that you've ever done in front of them?

Linda: They would say when I have been like crossing a street and a car cuts in front of us, kind of like barking at the driver, like putting up my hand and saying, excuse me or thank you. You know, being kind of a loud crank in public. They don't like that. Very embarrassing

Adam: I've fallen to that myself. There's a three way stop near our house and I've become very accustomed to yelling at people who don't know how to stop at that stop sign.

Linda: Kids don't like that.

Adam: No, no. What was the first nostalgic movie that you forced your kids to watch with you?

Linda: Oh I want to say the Wizard of Oz, but it probably wasn't because that scared the hell out of me when I watched it at 10. So it probably wasn't, but. That was such a nostalgic movie. I'll stick with that one.

Adam: It is. Okay. And I don't know if this still happens, but how often do you tell your kids back in my day stories?

Linda: I try not to, I really try not to. Nothing, nothing establishes you as like an old fogey, out of touch old fogey and talking about, well, when I was young, you know, nobody wants to hear that.

Adam: All right. Now to end, when your kids were younger, what was the crazier block of time in your household? 6am to 8am or 6pm to 8pm?

Linda: Okay. We had a different block. It was 4 PM to 6 PM. That was the witching hour. Awful, awful time fighting, bickering, awful, awful time.

Adam: Yep. Okay. So we have a new champion of the worst time of day All right. Well, Linda, thank you so much for coming on the show I learned a ton and this was a fascinating conversation.

Linda: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Linda Flanagan.

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